


Every Step You Do/Leads to Something New

by Meatball42



Category: Avengers Academy (Video Game), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Fix-It, Fridge Horror, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-24 23:23:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21107690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: There are a lot of things Bucky doesn't remember, and a lot of things he isn't sure about. But he knows that this is wrong.





	Every Step You Do/Leads to Something New

**Author's Note:**

> If it’s been long enough that you’ve forgotten RoboCap’s (very short) storyline, you can [read it here.](https://imgur.com/a/Oz65V)
> 
> The title is from the lyrics to the Charleston- thanks to Karios for the inspiration!

Bucky likes Club A. It brings back things. Not memories, but sometimes brief glimpses of a time before the Academy, before Hydra, when he and Steve and their friends would relax during difficult times. Bucky stands at the bar and watches Steve and Peggy spin around the floor, or some of the funny new dances people have come up with. He doesn't remember dancing to anything like them, but he can’t tell if that’s the changing times, or what’s been done to his mind.

Sometimes Black Widow will steal another student for an undercover mission, tangoing on the dance floor. That brings back a different sort of memories. Those are darker, and even harder to get a grip on.

But for the most part, the Club is a nice place. There's no fighting. DJ Vision and his new robot daughter make lights flash around and send comforting bass thumping through the building. Sometimes Bucky sinks deep into the music and feels like... maybe, someday, the world won't be filled with despair. Even during the invasions that seem to take over campus very few weeks, Club A is always busy, always a warm, welcoming place.

But after the latest invasion, something changes. There are a few new students, recruited from the robot army of Ultron. Even Ultron himself has been deprogrammed and is fighting for the Avengers, now. Bucky watches Ultron walk around the campus, past the robots he'd once fought to free, and shivers, thinking about how Tony went into Ultron's and Jocasta's heads and turned them inside out. It's for the greater good and all, but... Bucky's heard that before.

He retreats to the Club to feel safe again. Tony doesn't come around much, and when he does, he usually goes inside the building. Bucky settles by the bar and takes a drink, relaxing in increments. And then, he sees movement on the other side of the dance floor.

It's RoboCap, the robot Ultron made out of Steve’s brainwaves to attack the campus. He's standing just off the patio, dancing Steve's favorite dance. Bucky stares. He hadn’t realized that RoboCap had been recruited as a student.

Bucky searches his memory desperately. Every time he doesn't know something, he has to wonder whether he's forgotten it, or whether he never knew in the first place. And every time, he wonders if the knowledge has been taken from him somehow—because how would he know?— or if this is just... how he is now. If this Swiss cheese memory is what he has to look forward to for the rest of his life.

It's no use. The last he'd heard, Black Widow, the new archer girl, and a lucky dog were leading the last charge against RoboCap's position. Bucky slides off the barstool, feeling like he's in a sort of daze, and edges around the pool table. America Chavez is there, grumbling and swearing under her breath as none of the balls she aims for make it into holes.

That's something else Bucky's noticed at the bar. No one at the Academy is good at pool, even the people who ought to be.

"What's RoboCap doing here?" he asks. America looks up at him, annoyed, then glances at RoboCap before glaring back at her game.

"What does it look like? He’s dancing.”

“Is he a student?”

America snorts. “Like we need a fourth Captain America around here.”

“A… fourth?”

America stands up from her shooting pose and holds the pool cue like a staff. “I’m trying to do something here, if you don’t mind.”

Something about her fiery gaze and stubborn chin sparks a memory of adolescent fisticuffs. Bucky goes back to the bar until the dizziness of memory goes away.

When he leaves the club, RoboCap is still dancing.

  
~ ~ * ~ ~   
  


Bucky hesitates in the doorway of Tony’s basement laboratory. Tony is in his weird blacksmithing outfit, welding something. Bucky eyes the twist of metal, wondering if it’s the beginning of another suit, or another robot… or something else.

When Jarvis announces Bucky’s presence, Tony turns off the welder and springs to his feet. “Buckaroo! Come on in, sit down! Uh…” He floats up into the air on his Iron Man thrusters and spins around, looking for a clear spot. Most of the lab is covered in destroyed training robots or magazines. “Over here!”

Tony clears off a futon in the corner and throws himself down, waving Bucky over.

He looks happy to see Bucky. Friendly. They are friends, Bucky thinks. Tony tweaks his metal arm whenever he needs it and constantly offers the same improvements he makes to his own gauntlet. He lets Bucky eat from his cheese fridge and use his hot tub, and he tells Bucky which girl has mentioned having a crush on him on SnapChat this week so he can avoid them. He never seems to mind if Bucky’s having a quiet day, where he only listens to Tony’s continuous stream of words and nods.

Those are things friends do. Tony has never hurt him, not even before fixing his brainwashing. He can be oblivious, but Bucky has never felt unsafe around him. He’s never thought of Tony as another scientist with the capability of resetting Bucky’s brainwashing, or taking away his memories, making him into a weapon.

Not until now.

He sits down gingerly, and Tony notices. “Is something hurting?” he asks, sitting up and reaching for Bucky’s arm. Bucky flinches away and Tony freezes. “What’s wrong?” he says, more gently.

Bucky takes a deep breath. “Why is the Robot Steve stuck outside Club A?”

“You mean RoboCap?” Tony frowns. “Uh, I don’t know, I think Pepper put it there because it likes doing the Charleston and it goes with the theme.”

_ It. _ Bucky shivers.

“Are you okay?” Tony asks quietly. 

“So he is…” Unable to finish the sentence, Bucky swallows and tries again. It’s a bad time to lose his words.

“He is what?” Tony presses, his curiosity overtaking his usual patience with Bucky.

“He’s alive. And just… dancing. Forever?”

Tony’s mouth falls open and he blinks a few times. “Uhh…”

Bucky tries harder. “He’s like Jocasta, right? Ultron made him, based on Steve instead of Jan?”

“Yeah?”

“So why is he… trapped?”

The last word is forced out of Bucky’s mouth, barely audible. He can’t look at Tony anymore, because the memory of standing at the Red Skull’s shoulder, fighting against Steve and the other Avengers, feeling like he has no control over his body, no say in what he does, is overtaking his mind.

Then Tony moves, and Bucky flinches. He closes his eyes, waiting for the Red Skull’s heavy hand to come down on his shoulder. Or, for it to be Tony, this time, who drags him to the chair, makes him compliant like the Winter Soldier, like the newly complacent Ultron.

“Bucky?” Tony says softly. “Are you okay? I… I’m sorry. I didn’t think of any of this before. When Ultron gave RoboCap up for decommissioning, he walked right into my lab. Practically plugged himself into my computer.”

Bucky nods on painfully tight shoulders. He can picture that, easily. He can remember doing that. “He’s a good soldier,” he whispers.

The hand that comes down on his shoulder is tentative. “I’m gonna fix this for you, okay? I promise. You’re right, he deserves the same treatment as Jocasta and Ultron. He can be a student if he wants, or, I don’t know, maybe Fury will have some ideas. But he won’t have to dance anymore.”

Bucky opens his eyes and stares at the ground. He nods.

Tony gets up and walks away, returning a minute later with a big afghan. “How about you get comfortable here? I’ll call Steve over to talk to you and get the ball rolling on RoboCap.”

Bucky sits back on the futon and lets Tony pull the blanket over him. He doesn’t remember anything else for a while. 

  
~ ~ * ~ ~   
  


A week later, Bucky is finishing up a long stretch on the punching bag on the roof of the dorm when he hears something behind him. It sounds like someone coming up the external stairs in armor. Maybe Black Knight? He steps closer to the side of the building where his gun is stashed, and where he can jump to the ground from if he has to.

RoboCap turns the corner. His red eyes seem to brighten when he sees Bucky.

“Hey there,” he says in his buzzing voice, coming to a stop at parade rest at the top of the stairs. “I hear I have you to thank for my new status.”

Bucky fiddles with the wrapping on his right hand. “Nobody should be programmed,” he says quietly. “You should get to choose.”

RoboCap shrugs jerkily. “I am a robot, Bucky.”

“But you can choose. You’re like me. Just because they can program you doesn’t mean they should.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then RoboCap sighs. It sounds kind of like a one-note harmonica. “You’re right. We both deserve to make our own choices. I may be a robot, but I’m still based on Captain America, and I feel that I have a duty to protect this school.”

Bucky watches the robot’s body language. He has the same proud stance as Steve, the same cadence to his voice—the voice that Sam said sounded like an answering machine. But how much of his personality is Steve’s, and how much is Tony’s well-meaning reprogramming?

“And I know that you’re my friend,” RoboCap finishes, suddenly sounding less patriotically certain. “That is… if you want to be friends with someone like me.”

His shoulders tilt down in a way Bucky is intimately familiar with. He’s seen Steve slouch just that way when he said something dumb in front of a girl, or failed a task in front of someone he respected.

Bucky doesn’t know how much of the person in front of him is programming, and how much is personality, but he decides it doesn’t matter. RoboCap _ is _ a person, and that person deserves Bucky’s support just as much as Steve.

Bucky steps forward to shake RoboCap’s hand, and doesn’t startle at the feel of metal. “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

RoboCap’s head tilts. Even though he doesn’t have lips, Bucky can recognize a proud smile on his best friend’s metal face. “Me too, pal. Me too.”


End file.
